Everyone's always going on about phasing out slam door trains because they're old and dangerous.

But they have their uses and we (self and fellow passengers in non-slam door carriage) really could have done with one this week when elderly gentleman needed tooth removed.

Come to think of it, everyone's always going on about British Rail sandwiches and how soggy and tasteless they are. But at least soggy and tasteless sandwiches don't dislodge your teeth, unlike crusty, tasty baguettes which, we discovered, do.

Elderly gentleman, referred to above, boarded train at Victoria and settled himself down with a copy of The Telegraph, a cup of tea and a tuna baguette. By the time the train neared East Croydon, he was making rather slow inroads into the crossword but more substantial ones into his sandwich.

I'd arrived in a hurry and had nothing of own to read. Instead, was reading over his shoulder. Was just wondering whether I should tell him that I knew the answer to one across, when he let out a blood curdling cry and pointed to his front tooth. This appeared to have been dislodged by the thick crustiness of the baguette and was now hanging by a thread.

"FFFFFFF ahhhhh!" said the elderly gent, who by now was attracting a considerable amount of attention from other passengers - who were united in being totally not sure what to do.

"Is there a dentist in the carriage?" asked one, loudly - but there was no reply.

"Can't you just finish the job off and pull it out?" said another. But elderly shook his head.

"Try some more sandwich...." I suggested. But he wasn't keen on that.

"Now if this was a slam door train...," said finish the job off, "we could attach a bit of cotton to your tooth and the other end to the door and we'd have it out as soon as the guard blew his whistle."

"Wouldn't a sliding door do?" I asked, ignoring elderly gent who was shaking his head wildly and grimacing.

"No" said finish the job off. "It would have to be slam."

In the end we decided to let the guard decide what should be done and someone went to fetch him.

Elderly was a bit alarmed when he came back, clutching first aid box and his pliers-like ticket punching things and made a sort of "If anyone thinks he's going to remove my tooth with those plier-like ticket punching things they're wrong" gesture.

It turned out guard was merely planning on punching a few tickets once he'd dealt with the repercussions of the crusty baguette incident, which he did by dispensing painkillers from the first aid box.

This allowed elderly to say a few lispy words other than ahhhhhhhh! He thanked us for our concern, offered finish the job off the remains of the baguette and returned to his crossword.

"I think you'll find," I told him, "the answer to one across is root canal."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.